You And I'll Be Safe And Sound
by w0lfermelon
Summary: Jean Kirschtein is in it for the glory, and Marco just wants to go home. Welcome to the 104th annual Hunger Games; and may the odds be ever in your favour.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:**** You And I'll Be Safe And Sound**

**Summary:**_**Welcome to the 104**__**th**__** annual Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favour!**_

**I wrote it because I've just been to see Catching Fire for the second time and because I love the Hunger Games and because I can.**

**Very blatantly an AU in which the events of the Hunger Games novels never happened, but assumes the reader knows about the world. Title is an equally obvious reference to the Taylor Swift song from the first movie. Bite me.**

**Warnings:**** Canon typical gore/violence, major character deaths, fluff, angst, sloppy makeouts, developing relationships, sexual tension, sort of public sex (mentioned)**

**This fic is also hosted on my archiveofourown account, under the penname Elvamire.**

On the day of the reaping, Marco tried to tell himself how lucky he was.

It was a cold day. There was no frost on the ground, or any sign of snow at all, but it was chilled enough that he saw his breath mist in the air with every exhalation. The streets of District 12 were eerily silent as he walked to the Justice Building- people were at home consoling their children and themselves, preparing for the upcoming 'celebration.' Marco could hear, distinctly, every step he took, the tap of his boots' heels on pavement or the crunch of dry grass under his feet. With every noise, he tried to list a reason he was grateful.

Tap. His father made jewellery and his mother was a seamstress. They had always had enough money to feed their small family, to bake bread and buy oil for their lanterns. He had never gotten an opportunity in his life to eat until he was ill, but he never went hungry. He never had to take tesserae for grain and oil- his name was only in that glass bowl once.

Crunch. He was sixteen years old. Even if he was reaped, there would be other tributes who were only twelve and thirteen. He had an advantage over them.

Tap. His reaping clothes were warm and new, and the scarf wrapped around his neck had been gently and lovingly adjusted by his own mother before he left the house.

Yet he walked to the reaping alone. When he was twelve, his mother had panicked and cried in the month leading up to the reaping, and when she escorted him to the Justice Building she hadn't let him go to sign in until the Peacekeepers had dragged her away. He hated to see her upset like that, and so every year he walked to face his fate by himself. He knew that his mother was more afraid than he could ever be, and he supposed he understood that. If he had children, he wouldn't have wanted to see them picked for the Games.

His own fear was a quiet one as he reached the square and went to stand amongst the other boys his age. They smelled like fear, every last one, and he knew them all from school. The ones he stood next to he would have called friends on any other day., but there were no friends at the reaping. Looking around, all he could think was, _if it's them, it's not me_. He just couldn't quite bring himself to _hope_ it would be them.

On his first reaping, he'd been as hysterical and inconsolable as his mother. It seemed embarrassing, now, standing among the people who had even worse odds against them than he did. His fear hadn't lessened as the years passed without hearing his own name, but rather, it had been pushed to the side. His mother's feelings were more important. Comforting the frightened twelve-year-olds who had never done this before- that was more important, too. A lot of things were more important than how scared Marco was, and it was those things that helped distract him from that fear. It had become a quiet thing in the back of his head, nothing more than an acknowledgement that the worst could still happen.

Hitch had been District 12's escort for as long as Marco had been eligible for the reaping, and that hadn't changed now. She stood to one side of the stage outside the Justice Building, constantly fidgeting until the mayor's speech was over and she could come to stand in front of the microphone. Her blonde hair was wavy and puffy as always, and she wore three peacock feathers of ascending lengths in it. Her dress matched it, royal blue silk clinging to her body all the way down to her calves, and covered in feathers that Marco thought had to tickle. She was young for an escort, and she made it painfully obvious she was just itching for a better district.

As the mayor began to list the previous victors from District 12- all three of them- the only remaining living victor sauntered onto the stage. Their first had died of old age some time ago, and the second had drowned his liver in alcohol. Surprisingly, their newest victor, who had won the Games twenty years ago, never seemed to touch a drop. That didn't, however, mean that Levi Rivaille had made it out of the Games unscathed. People claimed that his mental state was notoriously fragile, and indeed, the cold deadness of his staring, sunken eyes never contradicted that rumour. When he sat down, he looked bored with the entire proceedings. His eyes never even went to Hitch as the mayor stepped down to allow her a place at the microphone.

Hitch cleared her throat daintily, smiling and tapping the microphone with an obnoxious little cough. Sometimes Marco thought that the only thing in the world he could hate was Hitch's smile. It made her eyes narrow, but not crinkle pleasantly at the sides like his mother's when she smiled, and her slightly upturned lips showed off unusually small, pearl white teeth. It was the most insincere smile that Marco had ever seen, and knowing what she was about to say next, it made his skin crawl.

"Happy Hunger Games!" Hitch trilled. "And may the odds be _ever_ in your favour!" She paused to clear her throat again, unnecessarily. "Ladies first, shall we?"

Hitch's pale hand dug deep into one of the large glass bowls at her side, stirring the slips of paper until she pulled one out with a ceremonious flutter. Her nails were teal green and sparkling, and long as talons- Marco had to wonder how she could even manage to open the slip with them.

"Mina Carolina." Hitch's voice was prim and proper as she spoke the name. There was no way she could have been unaware that what she said was a death sentence, but she managed to make it sound like something good anyway.

Mina was a year below Marco in school, but he still recognised her as she walked up to the stage on unsteady legs. Her dark hair, normally tied up in two pigtails, was down for the reaping. She had the olive skin of a Seam resident, and she'd worn the same dress to every reaping, having grown so little it hardly even needed letting out. Marco could easily imagine her name was in there ten, twenty times for tesserae.

Hitch was still smiling her sickly smile as she rested one clawed hand on Mina's shoulder, the other already reaching for the second glass bowl.

"And, of course, the boys." She simpered, again making a show of digging around in the bowl to pull out a name. Her fingers fumbled with opening the slip one handed, and she cleared her throat yet again upon managing it, like that would recover her lost dignity.

"Marco Bodt."

Marco's grandmother had died when he was eight. She'd lived with the rest of his family, and seemed tough and sturdy as nails despite her age. Waking up one morning to find her gone had been the biggest shock of his life; this was, in some ways, like that. The feeling of not being able to breathe was the same, as was the quickening of his pulse and the way he thought he could feel blood roaring in his ears. Except when his grandmother had died, it hadn't felt like the ground itself had fallen away beneath him. He hadn't felt like falling.

Someone shoved his back. Marco turned, and stared into the face of a little boy, probably only twelve. He wore the same expression that Marco had every year until then- afraid, but relieved, so achingly, wonderfully relieved that it hadn't been him.

This time, it had been. Marco's luck had run out.

The shove propelled him into movement, and he walked up to the stage on numb and unsteady legs like a newborn deer. He felt like a fawn, too, and a fool, weak and vulnerable and tricked into believing he had nothing to fear. The odds had been entirely in his favour, but his sense of security had still been unfounded.

Hitch's hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed, the sharp tips pinpricks through his best blue shirt. Marco didn't even flinch. His eyes were staring out at the crowd, blank and unseeing until a scream ripped through the air.

"_Marco!_" A woman at the back of the crowd was shrieking. Her hair was long and dark, her face as freckled as the boy she reached out for. She sobbed and kicked at the blond man who held her gently back, holding her as she yelled and cried.

Hitch was still speaking, as if pretending the disturbance hadn't happened, but Marco didn't hear her. The sound of his mother's grief had broken through the barrier of white noise and shock that surrounded his mind. Her grief was not premature- he'd only been reaped, but he was already as good as dead. No one from District 12 ever came out of the games. That piece of paper was as good as a noose around his neck.

He cried. On the stage, in front of his District as they clapped for their brave tributes, he let silent tears stream down his face. The fear had crept into his bones and taken hold, and all the soft words in the world couldn't stop him shaking.

He couldn't stop thinking about how stupid it was to have Peacekeepers escort he and Mina into the Justice Building. The both of them were too shocked to even try escaping, hollowed out by the announcement of their fate. His eyes flickered frantically back and forth, drinking in the halls of the silent, sad building where children came to sign away their favourable odds and wait to die. It was as if he wanted to drink in every detail he could, knowing he only had a finite amount of time left to see things.

Marco was escorted into a room, and he distinctly heard the finality of the click of the closing door in the otherwise silence. He reeled, reaching out to hold the back of a nearby chair for balance.

The door only stayed close for a moment before it opened again, his parents pouring through. His mother ran to him, sobbing, and gathered him up in her arms, crying into his shoulder. His father stood behind her, his face slack with the same shock that Marco himself felt. It shouldn't have been him. His name was only in the reaping ball once.

"You have to come back." It didn't even sound like his father- it was too broken and hoarse a voice, and he'd been expecting his mother to be the one to beg him to come home. "You have to come home, Marco. Please"

"I will." Marco said gently, so quiet that his voice was almost overridden by his mother's continued cries. "I promise I will, I really will." The words were as empty as his chest felt, emptied out by shock, but he said them anyway. It was what his parents needed to hear, to know that their only child was going to try and come back.

"Don't let them change you." His mother gasped, lifting her head to look at him. He could see the streaks of tears on her face, more rolling down from her eyes and she gripped his face between her hands. She looked half-crazed. "Don't just become a piece in their games. Stay who you are, Marco. Be the good boy we raised you to be."

"I will." Marco repeated, nodding numbly. Over his mother's shoulder, he could see the doors opening. In his mind he was shouting, _no, they haven't had enough time, let them stay_- but what did it matter? He had to leave at some point anyway.

His mother started crying again when the Peacekeeper's hand came down on her shoulder, leading her away from her son and backing her and her husband out of the door.

"Wait, wait!" She protested, and for a moment Marco thought it would be a repeat of his first reaping, when she refused to be taken from him. Instead, she slipped her wedding ring from her finger as she surged towards her son, pressing it into his palm and folding his fingers to close his fist around it. "Your token, from the district."

Then the Peacekeepers hauled her away, and Marco couldn't speak through the knot in his throat, numbly waving them goodbye.

He didn't resist as they led him out of the Justice Building, rushing him towards the train waiting nearby for the tributes to board. There was nothing to complain about, just the cold realization that he was going to die and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Mina was crying when he saw her again, even though Marco's own tears had dried. She was silent, but he could see the moisture in her eyes and on her face as she walked beside him towards the train. Instinctually, Marco reached out to take her hand in his own, squeezing reassuringly. He hated to see her cry.

She looked surprised as she glanced at him, confused by the display of camaraderie. Marco just shrugged, smiling awkwardly as they were ushered onto the train.

It was like nothing Marco had ever seen, to the point that he would have stopped still if he hadn't had people behind him to keep him moving. He may have been from one of the more well-off areas of District 12, but his own cosy home was nothing compared to the decadence of the Capitol train. The panel walls had been polished to a shine, and the carpet felt plush and expensive under his feet.

He and Mina were shown into one of the cars, her hand still clutched tightly in his as she hiccupped next to him. They sat down together on one of the crimson velvet sofas, Hitch soon trotting in behind them to daintily perch herself on an armchair.

There was only the barest moment of blissful silence until the automatic door of the train opened again, barely audible over Mina's crying. Marco was beginning to feel somewhat less numb, but her tears showed no sign of stopping.

"Shut up."

The voice was harsher and louder than the soft hiss of an automatic door which only just preceded it, as were the hard taps of boots more expensive than Marco's on the glossy wooden floor.

Levi folded himself into an armchair opposite Marco and Mina, reclining like he owned it. Every time he saw the victor, Marco was consistently surprised by how small he was, almost childlike. It almost made him question how exactly Levi had managed to win, but then again, everyone knew that- he was brutal, agile and strong as well as utterly deadly with a blade. For once, the District 12 tribute had been a favourite from the beginning.

"Crying is not going to help you now." His voice was as utterly devoid of emotion as his face was.

"What will?" Marco breathed, the words slipping unbidden from his lips. He already knew the answer: _nothing_.

However, Levi's opinion seemed to differ from his.

"Listening to me, for a start." The dark-haired man snapped, his eyes flashing in a way that erased any doubt Marco might have had about how Levi managed to win the Games at fourteen years old. "And by learning who you're fighting, so you know how to deal with them. You need to straighten up and stop pissing around."

Frightened into silence, Mina covered her mouth with her hand. Marco let go of her hand to lay it reassuringly on her shoulder, smiling gently and failing to notice Levi's short nod of approval.

"As I said," He said. "You need to know what you're up against. No matter how much you feel you're not prepared for it right now, you have to start preparing as early as you can."

Watching the other reapings had never been Marco's favourite part of the games- not that he had a favourite part at all. Still, he hated to see the fear and shock on the faces of the tributes as much as the bloodlust and joy on those of the careers. Still, he steeled himself to watch the recap of the reapings even more carefully than ever before. As his shock receded, it was mostly replaced by fear, but also by a will to survive.

District One's tributes were, predictably, volunteers. The boy was tall and stockily built, with short blond hair, probably a little older than Marco himself. He imagined he could already see the strength in his muscles as he moved. The girl was slighter and smaller, dark skinned and dark haired with enough freckles on her face to make Marco feel a small sense of camaraderie which he quickly quelled. There was no point in feeling anything but wariness for careers.

District Two's volunteers struck Marco as almost odd. The boy was tall and lanky enough that he seemed almost like he shouldn't be able to stand up as straight as he did, but his face was set and determined even as he sweated. Next to him, the girl was absolutely tiny- blonde and skinny with a nose that prevented Marco from thinking of her as dainty. Her eyes burned blue fire, and he found he was afraid of her.

The tributes from Three could have been twins, if they didn't have different surnames. Both of them small, blue-eyed and blonde they boy had cried openly when his name was called, trembling as the tears rolled down his face, but tried to remain strong regardless as his District applauded. In contrast, the girl (even tinier than Two's, as fragile as a pixie) faced the crowd with her eyes bravely forward and her feet firm in their stance. Marco was just glad he hadn't been the only one to publicly break down.

District Four had the usual eager careers, and Five the same frightened tributes that were always expected. The boy from Six was another crier, with pale brown hair- he sobbed relentlessly, screamed and begged for this not to happen to him, but no one volunteered to take his place.

The tributes from District Seven were a couple, clearly- it was by chance that both their names had been pulled out. They held hands on the stage and kissed through their tears.

Marco had thought the boy from Three would linger most in his mind, but he found he was mistaken. The boy from Eight was a rarity: a volunteer from a non-career District. He had called out in a cocky voice as he stepped up, running long fingers through his two-tone hair and smirking slightly as he proudly announced he just wanted the glory, when prompted about why he volunteered. He was arrogant, clearly, but Marco found himself blushing a little- arrogant, but attractive.

In the wake of such a memorable young man- perhaps not for the right reasons- the tributes from District Nine faded from Marco's memory; but the fear evident in the tiny boy from Ten and his fellow tribute, her brown hair messy and her clothes dirty, stuck in his mind.

Finally, District Eleven held yet more surprises. Despite being a poor, outlying District, both tributes were volunteered. Initially, a terrified little girl had been reaped, but after a bright-eyed and eager teen boy volunteered, she was replaced by a beautiful and stoic young woman who did so after him. Her expressionless face seemed almost eerie in contrast with the boy's manic smile- it reminded Marco of Levi.

The only constant, it seemed, between the tributes from he other Districts were Marco's overlying thoughts about them, muffled by the shellshock that pervaded his head.

_I cannot kill any of these people. I cannot kill anyone at all_.

**A/N:**** I didn't want to explicitly name the other tributes at this point, but I think I made it kinda obvious who they are?**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:****Shout-out to m0nde-green on tumblr for sitting with me at lunch and forcing me to assign Districts and mentors to every single fucking character despite the fact it has no impact on the story at all. :*  
Her and tumblr user Izolus beta'd so if there are any errors they messed up and not me. Their fault. I'm kidding.**

**I also went back and changed the first chapter somewhat to neaten it up slightly, and change some details that needed changing.**

"I didn't take in any of that." Mina said shortly after Levi switched off the television. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, sniffing, and there was a pained squeak from Hitch in the corner.

"I suggest you ask Freckles what he thought of it, then. You're going to need to know all you can about the other tributes to even have a chance of beating them." Levi, it seemed, could be just as blunt as Mina, and he could do it with ten times less emotion in his voice.

"I don't know what to tell her." Marco admitted quickly, before anyone had a chance to think he might actually be worth talking to about surviving in the arena. A part of him, large even though it was tucked away at the back of his head, had accepted he was going to die. "All I saw were scared kids. Like us."

"Then you need to look closer." Levi scoffed, rolling all his weight onto one leg and crossing his arms over his chest as he stood up. There was a beat of silence, then he bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

"Keep away from the Careers." Mina offered, sounding hopeful and unsure. "That's all I know about."

"Well, at least you've got enough smarts to figure that out." Levi exhaled heavily, not quite another sigh. "But since you can't seem to think of this for yourselves- you also want to keep your asses clear of District 11, and the boy from Eight."

"Why?" Marco asked; beside him, Mina's eyes had dried, becoming calculating instead of abjectly miserable. She looked determined.

"Because," Levi said, with the air of someone explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. "They're volunteers too. They _want_ to be in the Games- that means they're pretty sure they'll be able to survive them. Getting cocky is stupid, but confidence in these Games is dangerous."

Marco nodded. It was hard to take any of this advice in, as Mina had said, when his mind was still spinning like this. But, he knew that he had to at least try- not doing so would mean going into the arena even more blind than everyone else.

He wanted to go home, he realised. Badly, like an ache in his gut as if he hadn't been eating in too long. He wanted to be able to go back to his parents and show them he was okay. He hadn't yet considered the logistics of that- namely, killing people- but then again, it hadn't occurred to him before that he actually _wanted_ to go home, strange as that sounded. Through the paralysing cloud over his brain, he hadn't been able to feel much of anything. Now it was mostly cleared, and oh God, he wanted to go home. It wasn't even a desire to survive, just a deep hunger to return to District 12 and the life he had led there.

He didn't want his parents, his friends, to have to grieve for him.

"Any other pearls of wisdom?" Mina asked dryly, and Marco saw one corner of Levi's mouth quirk up in a tiny smile.

"Heh. Yeah." He shook his head slightly, shaking his dark hair out of his face. "A lot of the tributes get killed by the environment, not their opponents. If you want to survive, you need sponsors. Get people to like you."

With that, Levi swept out of the room. His movements made Marco think he should have been wearing a cape, or something similar, instead of just a suit and cravat.

Slowly, Mina and Marco turned to look at each other. There were still tear tracks on the girl's face, but she didn't seem ashamed of them.

"We've got Levi." She said, trying to make her voice seem less shaky than she felt. "You remember his Games. We can win this, with him teaching us."

"None of the other tributes from our District have." Marco couldn't help pointing out. Mina scoffed.

"They weren't either of us."

Marco let his gaze fall from Mina's face to his own lap. 'We,' and 'us,' she'd said, and he didn't know how he felt about it. He knew pretending to be a team would help them win favour in the Capitol, but they weren't a team. They would have to kill each other just like everyone else. Such was the nature of the Games, and there would be no avoiding it. If Marco wanted to go home for his parents, he would have to play along. He would have to kill someone.

He kept looking down, turning his mother's wedding ring over and over in his hands.

The Capitol had been so much less and yet so much more than Marco had expected it would be. He'd seen it on television every year, when it had been some other poor boy in the Games, all bright lights and towering, iridescent buildings.

That grainy, two-dimensional image couldn't even come close to what the Capitol truly was. The glossy silver train and all the people inside of it were dwarfed by the buildings that dominated the skyline, and Marco didn't think he'd ever seen so many people in his life, not even at the reapings. They were like birds, he thought, strutting around as the train passed by in all manner of colours he didn't think clothes would ever come in- hot pinks and lime greens, canary yellow and peacock blue. Self conscious, he tugged at the fraying white cuff peering out from underneath his pastel blue shirt. He would fade out of view around this rainbow of people, his colour too diluted and worn to be seen amongst them. Their eyes, outlined in bright powder that matched the colours painted on their lips peered into the windows. Marco couldn't help but smile, waving shyly at the people of the Capitol and being astounded when their response was to cheer. Mina had rolled her eyes at him.

That Capitol seemed a world away from the stainless steel and grey room he was currently sitting in, closing his eyes as he listened to the gentle buzz of an electric razor somewhere to the left of his ear. Haircuts at home had always been done with just scissors, and it made him slightly nervous to have whizzing blades so close to his throat. It was stupid- there'd be a lot more dangerous things aimed at his throat soon enough. His time was ticking down.

"There, you can open your eyes now, darling." The woman who'd been fussing around him trilled in her silly Capitol accent. Marco had to admit he couldn't remember her name, just the length of her fuchsia nails that didn't do much to set him at ease about the razor.

Still, he did as he was told, and found himself facing a mirror. His eyes widened slightly- he'd gotten out of most of the work Mina's prep team had done on her, since apparently the Capitol didn't care about the male tributes being shaven, so long as they were clean. But his hair had been deemed unacceptable, hence the cutting. His fringe had been neatened up, and his hair shaved close to the sides so that it now resembled Levi's. He wondered if that was deliberate, if they were trying to improve his chances by reminding the Capitol of District 12's last great victor, or if that was just the current style favoured in the Capitol.

"What do you think?" The Capitol woman trilled, blinking her long eyelashes. She seemed unusually eager to please, compared to what Marco had expected. He hadn't realised tributes would be so popular in the Capitol.

"It's… short." Marco said without thinking, inwardly cringing when he realised how that might sound. He was just used to having shaggy hair, something for him to brush into his eyes and hide behind. With most of his hair now lying on the ground around the chair, he was naked and exposed. Literally so, as well- his clothes had been taken from him and never given back.

"I like it, though." He added hurriedly, as eager to please as the prep team was. They grinned among themselves, and after a few more minutes of fussing, bustled out of the room. He assumed they were fetching the stylist.

He was correct, and also surprised. With his prep team looking even more extravagant than the Capitol citizens outside, he'd been expecting someone equally outlandish as his stylist, but he was mistaken. Instead, his stylist was a relatively normal-looking young man in a turtleneck with a green unicorn embroidered on the breast, with dark hair in an unusual cut that made Marco tilt his head. Whatever the Capitol found attractive, he supposed.

"I'm Marlow." The stylist introduced himself, and Marco shook a hand that dripped emerald rings. "I'll be your stylist, which I think you must have guessed already. Mina will have someone else. We like to treat the tributes as individuals."

"It was a little obvious." Marco smiled. There was a knot of fear-tension in his throat that had been there since the reaping the day before, and Marlow's presence didn't ease it, but it helped in the same small way that having an endearing, if overbearing, prep team did. He felt slightly more at home, even knowing that he would likely not be alive soon.

"Why don't you put on your robe?" Marlow suggested, nodding at the fluffy white thing folded nearby for Marco to use. "I'd like to talk about what you're going to wear tonight."

Inwardly relieved that his naked body hadn't (yet) been inspected like a piece of fine meat, Marco nodded and got up to retrieve his robe.

Even having spent less than a day there, Marco was beginning to appreciate how time flew for tributes in the Capitol. It seemed unfair that now he suspected he had limited time left to breathe, the clock was ticking down ever faster. He felt like he'd barely blinked from stepping off the shining silver train to being stood in a jet black chariot alongside Mina. They were dressed similarly, both in coal coloured fabric that glittered with silver dots, like coal dust. The only difference, really, was that where Marco wore pants and a waistcoat with nothing beneath, Mina was in a form hugging dress. Even their boots were the same, shiny leather creeping up to their knees. Their makeup was identical, too, despite the differing genders, with their eyes outlined in smoky black. The same silver powder on their clothes was threaded through the hair.

Marco hated it. He felt like a doll, and a bizarrely dressed one at that. Still, considering some of the previous costumes that he'd seen tributes from District 12 wear, it could have been far, far worse.

In front of them were the other tributes, in chariots of varying colours. Directly in front of them, the pair from District 11 were dressed in clothes made from clinging green grasses and vines that Marco supposed were meant to link to agriculture, but looked like nothing he would ever eat. The girl's face was turned slightly to stare directly at the boy, who didn't even seem to notice.

The volunteers. The ones he and Mina were supposed to avoid, like the Careers and the pretty boy from Eight. Indulging in the childish voice that spoke in his mind whenever he had a crush, Marco craned his neck to try and see, but he couldn't look at anything beyond the bizarre feathered crowns that the District Ten tributes had been landed with. Marco almost wanted to try speaking to them, making friends, but what good would that do? Only one of them would come out. Making friends would simply mean having to turn on them later, wouldn't it?

Before he had the chance to try and look again, the door in front of all the chariots rose open, and he watched as the District One chariot rolled out in the distance. Pearl white, the tributes inside stood as far apart as possible while they glistened and sparkled in the sun.

One after the other, the tributes rolled out. He thought that the boy from Three might have been crying again, but he was too far away to see, and Marco wouldn't have blamed him- their costumes sparked and buzzed with electricity. Four went, then Five and Six, and the tributes from Seven were tightly gripping each other's hands at an angle which would allow the Capitol to see. It was a clever move, Marco supposed, to play up the star-crossed lovers aspect. It was the kind of thing the Capitol would eat up, and Levi _had_ advised them that they needed to win favour with sponsors.

Marco's brown gaze focused on the boy from Eight when that chariot rode out, and if he wasn't mistaken then he looked slightly different from the reaping. Quickly, Marco realised that he wasn't the only one who'd been given an undercut, and the top of the pretty boy's hair had been bleached a lighter shade of brown than the rest of it.

Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, all these tributes passed outside without difficulty, and then their chariot was rolling forwards. Marco felt his throat constrict around the knot inside it, his chest tightening up in a similar manner as the rush of outside air hit him along with the screams from the Capitol.

They were cheering, all of them. There was a cacophony of names being shouted down at the tributes as they rode, and if he wasn't just hallucinating, then Marco thought he heard his own name. His and Mina's costumes were unremarkable compared to some of the others, but people knew who he was anyway. Perhaps because he'd waved on the train? Or because they were just so invested in the game that they knew the names of even the tributes from Districts like 12?

One of Marco's hands was gripping tight to the frame of the chariot, brushing comfortingly against Mina's. He was afraid he'd fall out if he didn't hold on. His mother's ring caught the light, a plain gold band decorated with a string of three tiny pearls.

But the cheers were working his way into his blood and humming through his bones, a spark carried through every nerve in his body. His other arm went up without his consent, and he waved at the crowds assembled to watch them.

There volume spiked, and people who had been silent before were shouting his name now too. A smile split his face and he felt like he might throw up, or cry, or just laugh and laugh.

The crowd screamed until Marco thought he was going to death, and his throat was aching with the knot inside it, and he knew in his heart that he was going to die in the Games. It was inevitable, going up against Careers and people who were so much more talented and deadly then he was. He would die. Knowing that, a new determination crept into his head. He still wanted to go home, but if he had to be killed in the arena, he wanted to die _for_ something.

He wanted to be remembered.

**A/N:**** 20 chapters is a conservative estimate for how long this is going to be. Whoops.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:**** I'm so sorry for how long this took to update. I was incredibly busy over the holidays since I was hand-sewing a lot of gifts for people, and then I ended up writing a Christmassy oneshot as a present for my friend. Plus, this chapter just took a despicably long time to write, I couldn't physically sit down and make myself do it.**

**So yeah, to anyone that hasn't given up on me yet, I'm sorry for the wait.**

**Beta'd by tumblr user brawnyreindeer.**

It was odd, Marco thought, how un-intimidated he felt, standing among the other tributes. He hadn't realised it before, but he was almost as tall and broad as the Career boys- well, not quite. One was impossibly muscular and another so lanky Marco was surprised he didn't fall right over, but none of the others even came close to matching those two. Still, he didn't dare let himself hope that this could be an advantage; he still didn't know how to fight, and he still didn't want to hurt anyone. He could have taken this perfect opportunity to inspect the other tributes up close for the first time, but instead he ignored them all in favour of hanging on their instructor's every word. In his mind's eye, he kept seeing his parents, sitting in their home and watching him die, and it was something he was determined to avoid. He thought listening to the instructions and advice they were given about training would be the best way to do that.

When the lecture was over, the other tributes dispersed to the various stations, and he was left alone. Standing in the training centre, knowing that the clock of his life was counting down like Panem was waiting for the Games, the things Marco least wanted to feel were ineffectual and useless. But because the universe seemed to have it in for him (it had decided to kill him, after all) that was exactly how he felt. Every other tribute had filed away to the various stations, but Marco had no clue which one to even look at. Going to any of the weapons would be useless- there was no way he could become proficient in the time he had when he'd never even picked one up before. Besides, he didn't want to kill people, and the mere idea of doing so filled him with dread. Every night since the reaping, he'd woken up in a cold sweat from a nightmare of which he remembered nothing but someone else's blood on his hands.

Marco glanced, once, around the room. The Careers had gone straight for the weapons, accompanied by most of the more confident tributes. Those who were left filtered out to the survival techniques. He knew that was where he was headed- he didn't even want to think about the weapons- but he had no clue which station to go to first. He was used to a comfortable life, a house with heat and light and food. That was more than most of the other tributes had ever had, and he could see that by looking at them. But it meant he had no idea of what it was to fight for his life.

His eyes found Mina, fingers fumbling to string a bow at the archery station, her gaze already turned to the target. He felt, undeniably, an urge to stick by her, the last thing he had of home that wasn't his mother's ring weighing heavy on his finger. But, he knew the weapons stations were the last places he wanted to be, and resolved to go off alone.

The question was, where? Levi's advice to them both had been minimal, at best. He gave them no clues about how to present themselves, aside from saying that the Capitol needed to remember them and the tributes had to forget about them. There was sense in it- despite his skill, in Levi's Games the other tributes had paid him no attention, seeing him as far too small to pose a threat. That had backfired on them when he'd proved himself to be a ruthless, adept killer.

Other than that, all Levi had told them was to go to the stations they felt like they needed, and trust their instincts. That left Marco at a loss- he had no idea what he needed, and he didn't think he even _had_ instincts.

In the end, he went to the fire-lighting station. He didn't know how to do it without matches, and the only other tribute there was the small boy from District 3, the one who'd cried at the reaping. He regarded Marco with wary, cerulean blue eyes when he approached, and said nothing at all. Despite himself, Marco was slightly disheartened. He had a reputation back home for being endlessly pleasant, so people were normally at least a little happy to see him. Here, no one knew him, and they had to try and kill him besides, but the little rejection still stung somehow- it served to remind him how far from District 12 he really was now.

He turned his attention from the blond boy to the instructor from the Capitol (_how_, he wondered, _do you end up being declared an expert at lighting fires?_) and his admittedly enthusiastic demonstration. Apparently, his station wasn't often visited.

It was only when they'd been somewhat left t their own devices, trying to get the wood in front of them to catch alight, that his fellow tribute spoke.

"You need to do it faster than that."

Marco's hands paused where they had been spinning a twig over a section of bark. The boy's voice was so soft and sweet that Marco had to glance questioningly at him to check he'd really spoken at all.

"Spinning it." The boy explained. "You need to do it faster, if you want to start a fire. It's the friction that generates the heat, so…" He trailed off under Marco's gaze, going back to his own efforts at starting a fire.

Marco's gaze fell back to the wood in front of him. Following the boy's advice, he jumped back instinctively when the wood caught fire, tongues of orange flame spitting sparks as they grew. Over the soft crackling of the fire, he heard the boy speak again.

"You're the boy from Twelve, right?" He said, soft and hesitant as if he was afraid of causing offence. When Marco nodded, he smiled thinly. "You cried too." He said, like he was trying to explain why he had remembered his face out of all the ones he could have chosen to recall.

"I guess I did." Marco shrugged. "It's a scary experience. I don't think there's shame in crying over it."

"I still wish I hadn't. I doubt anyone in the Capitol is going to have enough faith in me to sponsor me now." He didn't sound ashamed that he had embarrassed himself, but was instead calm and calculating, analysing how his tears had possibly hurt his chances, when that thought hadn't even crossed Marco's mind. There was an undeniable spark of intelligence in his blue eyes.

"Well," Marco reasoned. "If you prove your worth at the interviews and individual assessment, I'm sure you'll get some." Never mind that he himself was deeply worried about his own chances at sponsors now.

"Yeah, you're right." The blond boy smiled faintly again. "I'm just not sure that I'm skilled enough to do that." He said quietly, his gaze downcast. It took him a moment to look back up, still trying to smile. "I'm Armin, by the way. Armin Arlert."

"Marco Bodt." Marco said, feeling the knot that had been tied somewhere in the vicinity of his chest since the reaping loosen. He knew a name now- not everyone was being hostile or aloof. It didn't change the fact that they _were _still all out to kill each other, but at least Armin seemed nice. It allowed him to create an illusion that he could make friends, could maybe even trust some of these people to some extent, at least for a little while. "You should have more confidence in yourself."

Armin looked somewhat baffled at the fact a rival was giving him advice, but Marco continued. "Being able to fight isn't everything. People get far in the Games by being smart, too." It was true. In one of the earliest Games that Marco remembered watching, an older girl from District Three had won with traps and trickery- what was her name again? Hannah? Hanji? Three hadn't had another victor since, so she was probably Armin's mentor, now that he thought about it. Perfect for him to learn from.

"Why are you telling me this?" The confusion had leaked into Armin's voice now. "The better my chances are in the arena, the worse yours will be."

Marco shrugged.

"I figure I'm going to die in there whatever happens." No matter how hard he was trying not to, it was a strong possibility that he had to accept. "And I like helping people, so I may as well go out as the nice guy." He tried to explain, but it was hard to do so when he couldn't really explain it himself. He knew it was stupid to help Armin, but it was all but a compulsion. Besides that, the idea of alliances had crept into his head like a thief in the night and stayed there. The thought of dying alone, with no one but his killer to see how it had happened, frightened him more than anything else about the Games. It had always been one of his biggest fears. It could be good to have allies in the arena, as long as he managed to ignore the inevitability of them all turning on each other.

"Besides," He quickly continued, feeling that the silence had stretched on too long after his somewhat sombre reply. "We've both been abandoned by our girls, so I figure we have to stick together." He joked. The tiny blonde girl from Armin's District was over with the weapons, testing the weight of a knife that looked enormous in her little hands.

"Historia's right to leave me." Armin said ruefully. "Appearances are deceiving- she's brilliant. I'd only slow her down."

"Are you related?" Marco asked. Armin's voice was fond when he talked about her, and they did look incredibly alike.

"No." The blond shook his head. "We're both in Grade 10 together back home, though. I've known her for a long time."

Marco blinked, surprised that the tributes from Three were only a year younger than he was. He'd have thought the age gap would be a lot larger- Historia especially didn't look much older than twelve. Deceiving appearances, indeed.

Leaning back from the crackling flames in front of him to scan the training centre, Marco noticed he wasn't the only one who'd been looking at Historia. The freckled girl from District One had her dark eyes fixed on her, standing a few steps back from the other Careers. They had stuck together in a tightly knit group- the lanky boy and his stocky companion were especially close together- except, it seemed, for the girl from Two. She had drifted away from them to the archery station, standing next to Mina and the brunette girl from Ten. Every arrow she'd fired had hit the bull's-eye exactly. The girl from Ten had good aim, too. Mina's wasn't bad, but it seemed almost awful in comparison.

He felt a little better knowing he and Armin weren't the only ones avoiding the weapons, too. The couple from Seven were too, and some of the other tributes who hadn't particularly caught his eye during the reapings.

There was shouting coming from the other end of the training centre, and Marco glanced over curiously. What he'd initially taken to be simple sparring practice actually seemed, now he looked, to be a real fight- of course it was, they weren't allowed to spar with each other. He watched as a short boy with dark hair swung at his opponent, blood spraying when his fist connected.

"Oh, dear." Armin said beside him, apparently noticing the fight at the same time Marco did.

Without even really thinking about it, he got up from the floor and crossed the training centre to where they were, listening to Armin's footsteps as he followed.

Now he was closer, Marco could see that the two people fighting were the boys from Eleven and Eight, the latter now clutching his hands to his face to stop the bleeding from his nose. The beautiful dark-haired girl from Eleven had grabbed a hold of her fellow tribute, holding him back as he attempted to hit the other boy again. The taller of the two lunged for him, hands blood, and Marco instinctually grabbed his arm to hold him back. Armin had gone around to help with restraining the other boy- he was tenacious, desperate to break away from her. His eyes were wide and bright, teeth bared like a wild animal.

"Let go!" The boy from Eight protested, looking over his shoulder at Marco. He felt a few drops of thick blood splatter against his cheek like extra freckles. "The fucker broke my nose!"

"And who's it going to help if you break his, too?" Marco challenged. He didn't think his words had been processed at all.

"Don't touch Eren." The girl said, her voice as dark and threatening as the look on her face.

"He broke my nose!"

"You deserved it." The boy- Eren, apparently- snarled.

"What even happened here?" Armin asked, his eyes wide and almost terrified, fingers tight on Eren's shoulder.

"He's an arrogant prick," Eren spat. "Who thinks he can say whatever he likes to people's family."

"Eren, I really don't care." The girl said, sounding resigned and tired, like she'd experienced this a thousand times before. Marco glanced around the room again and, nervous now he saw that the whole room, Gamemakers included (twenty or so men and women, dressed in the purple robes of royalty, staring down at them like gods), had their eyes turned to them, asked,

"What did you even _do_?"

"Told him what I'd like to do to her." He was panting, continually dabbing and wiping at his nose. The skin of his hands had been dyed scarlet. "How was I meant to know he was her brother, as well as a hothead suicidal bastard?"

"Did you apologise?" Armin asked, surprisingly calm for the look on his face.

"No." He replied, his anger faltering for a moment.

"Do it." Marco advised, although he wasn't sure Eren's fury could be tempered by something so simple.

"Apologise to me, not Mikasa." Eren said. There was a beat of tense silence.

"I'm sorry, Mikasa." The boy Marco was holding ground out through gritted teeth.

"Are we done with this, now?" Mikasa's voice was still emotionless- bored, almost. Marco didn't think he'd seen her facial expression change until Eren had been threatened.

"Yeah." Eren said after a moment, his posture relaxing even if his face was still contorted as he shrugged off Mikasa and Armin's hands. Marco could feel Jean's muscles tense under his hands, and he didn't dare let go of him yet.

Of course, only now the fight was over did the Capitol officials hurry to where they were, faces drawn and worried. Marco steeled himself for their questions and punishments, but to his surprise, they didn't come. One of them simply prised his fingers off the bloody boy with brutal efficiency and marched him away, leaving the rest of them, Eren included, behind. The whole training centre had gone eerily silent. Marco simply stood there uselessly, scarlet sears on the skin of his palms.

"Where are they…?" Eren trailed off mid-question, his eyes confused. They were a striking colour, Marco noticed, sea green and ice blue all at once.

"Probably just to get him cleaned up." Armin said, swallowing noticeably. "If they were going to punish him for fighting, they'd have taken Eren too."

"I guess you're right." Marco said, hating the quiver in his voice. It seemed like no matter where he looked, he could see red out of the corner of his eyes.

Apparently satisfied that her brother was no longer in danger, Mikasa stalked away; dragging Eren with her. To Marco's dismay, Armin followed the siblings back to the weapons, leaving him standing there alone.

He glanced down, and immediately wished he hadn't. There wasn't a great deal of the boy's blood on his hands, but it was there- painting his fingers and flecking his shirt, and he knew there must be some of it on his face where he'd felt it splatter. He swayed on the spot, his vision blurring at the edges as a wave of nausea lapped at the inside of his stomach, a feeling not unlike vertigo making his head spin. It was an image almost exactly from the nightmares he'd had since the reaping, someone else's blood on his hands. Even if he hadn't been the one to make the boy bleed, it was there regardless, and he didn't even know his name. An anonymous child sent to die.

_Snap out of it, _he mentally berated himself, shaking his head ever so slightly. He had to be stronger than this, so much stronger, if he was going to make it through the Games and go back to his family.

He wiped his hands clumsily on his shirt, staring around the room rather than look at the blood. He was fine. He was okay. Everyone was still alive, for now.

The composition of the Careers had changed again, he noticed. Three of them stood by the station for throwing knives, the blond resting a steadying hand on the lanky boy's wrist as he helped him aim. The tiny girl stood beside them, her steely eyes cold and assessing, but the one with freckles had disappeared.

He found her moments later, standing next to Historia, and watched as she clapped a hand on her shoulder and laughed loudly- nervously.

Marco hid a small smile- he knew he wasn't supposed to find anything to smile about when it came to the Careers, but how could she not notice how obvious her crush was? Regardless, he was in favour of anything that disrupted the structure of their little foursome. He needed all the help he could get.

Hoping all the blood was off his hands, Marco headed again towards the survival skills station. He was alone now, but he still had to learn. He settled into one of the vacant stations (knot-tying) listening to the background noise of Mina's arrows thudding into the targets.

* * *

"Hey, Marco!"

He turned, glancing over his shoulder- it was odd to hear his name after a day spent in essential isolation. Armin had never come back to him, spending the entirety of their time in the training centre so far with Eren and Mikasa.

Mina hurried over to him, the other tributes walking past them without a care as they headed on their way to lunch. Marco was hardly hungry, but he could imagine everyone who'd been doing more physical training was starving by now.

"Will you sit with me? I want to talk to you." She asked as they began walking again, in step as they headed into the dining room.

"Of course." Marco smiled brightly.

The two of them found a table together off to one corner of the room, Mina's plate stacked high with food while Marco's was only moderately full. The other tributes, too, seemed to settle into groups- Armin with his newfound friends, and all the Careers together except for the freckled girl, who seemed joined to Historia at the hip. There had still been no reappearance from the boy with two-tone hair, and Marco was almost starting to worry.

"I wanted to talk to you about when we get into the arena." Mina's voice was quiet, almost conspirational. She was ignoring the food in front of her in favour of leaning over slightly, bringing her mouth closer to him. "I think we should be allies. I mean, we're from the same District. I want to win, but if I don't, I hope it's you."

Marco had started nodding before she even finished her proposition. Allies were one thing he'd wanted, and he knew why Mina was asking him. She was from the Seam; anything that might bring food to her family, she was in favour of. They both wanted to take home the prizes that came with being victor.

Mina beamed at him, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. She was incredibly pretty when she smiled.

"Great. I think-" Whatever she had been about to say next was interrupted by the soft sound of someone clearing their throat next to their table. Marco blanched. If someone had been able to come up to them without their noticing, he didn't think it spelled good things for their instincts.

When he glanced up at the newcomer, his eyes widened. It was the boy from Eight, back from wherever he'd been taken and looking awkward as he stood there with a tray of food. It was the first time Marco had seen him up close and really got a chance to look at him, and he was not as attractive as he'd seemed from a distance. His lips were too thin, his eyes too narrow, his brow creased with a permanent frown. Bruises had blossomed like flowers around his nose and under his eyes, purple and black that faded to blue- although other than that, his nose seemed fine. Marco wondered if the Capitol could heal bones as quickly as they could cuts and scrapes, or if maybe it hadn't been broken after all. Still, his hair looked stupid in the style it had been forced into.

But Marco swore he could have cut himself on the boy's cheekbones, and the colour of his eyes was breathtaking. They had seemed brown before, but they were too pale to be brown- his eyes were golden, like honey or light sifting down through autumn leaves. His breath caught in his throat like his gaze did on those eyes.

"Uh," The boy began, shifting from foot to foot on the spot. His voice snapped Marco out of his daze- he wasn't furious like he had been at Eren earlier, but his voice was still somewhat harsh despite how quiet it was. "Would you mind if I sat here? The only other seats are near Jaegar, and I don't…" He moved to make a vague gesture with his hand, and almost dropped his tray. Marco saw Mina's lips quirk up in amusement, and he had to fight not to do the same.

"Go ahead." He replied kindly, and was rewarded with a thin smile that didn't quite manage to seem grateful as much as it seemed forced. Mina had fallen silent across the table, picking at the food on her plate as the boy took a seat next to Marco.

"I think I'm meant to thank you for stepping in earlier, but all you did was stop me from kicking the shit out of him, so I'm not going to." He said simply before shovelling a forkful of food into his mouth, leaving Marco vaguely surprised.

"I never asked you to thank me." He pointed out. One gold eye flickered in his direction, gazing at him with an intensity that would have made his face heat up if he blushed easily. He couldn't resist adding, "And it did seem like it was you who was losing."

At that, the other boy's face flushed pink, and he cleared his throat.

"At least I didn't cry at the reaping." He looked like he instantly regretted saying it, but Marco couldn't help feeling a faint thrill of embarrassment- the boy he'd been developing something of a crush on remembered him crying.

"Not all of us have enough of a death wish to volunteer." He said, slightly disheartened.

"Not a death wish." The boy corrected him. He grinned, lazy and cocky- it looked incredibly out of place with the blush. "I just want to bring glory to my District, and all that."

Marco wondered if, where he came from, 'glory,' was code for 'food.' He knew it was in Twelve- no one cared about the winning, it was the prizes. Or at least, until they actually found themselves in the Games.

"I just want to go home." He admitted, and that seemed to shut the bruised boy up. From the opposite end of the table, Mina cleared her throat to break the awkward silence, but neither of the boys seemed to notice. Their gazes were locked on each other, gold and brown. He had long eyelashes, Marco noticed, although they were too pale for that to be seen from a distance. His lips were parted slightly, kissable, and, no. He refused to develop a crush on someone he was trying to kill.

"I guess that's a pretty good goal." The boy admitted, and then added, "You know, I don't actually know your name."

"It's Marco." Marco said after a faint pause, having needed to take a moment to process what had been asked. Not because looking at bone structure like that was making him forget his own name. Not at all. "Marco Bodt."

"I'm Jean Kirschtein." The boy said, and his smile when he said it wasn't awkward or forcibly arrogant; it was just an honest, winning smile.

Maybe it was too late to stop the crush in its tracks.

**A/N:**** Long chapter compared to the others, but a lot had to happen in it. No, that's a lie, I just tend to get caught up in things and go off on tangents. Yikes. Sorry.**

**I also have no idea how the American school system works but I assume Panem would follow it roughly so fingers crossed that Grade 10 is right for their ages.**

**Armin/Bertholdt/Marco is my eternal brotp and I believe that in a better world they'd have been best buddies and bitched about their crazy boyfriends together. This universe doesn't allow for that, but like hell if I'm not going to push Marco and Armin into some kind of friendship.**


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